SEOUL, South Korea {AP}  Heavy rains soaked South Korea overnight, triggering landslides and flooding that killed at least 33 people in the northern part of the country, government officials said Sunday.

Fourteen people were missing, including eight tourists who were swept away in rain-swollen streams in Kapyong, a camping resort 22 miles northeast of Seoul, authorities said.

With the rain letting up Sunday afternoon, thousands of soldiers and government officials helped flood victims clear garbage, mud and debris from some 15,000 homes that had been inundated.

President Kim Dae-jung urged his Cabinet to take steps to speed the cleanup, his chief spokesman Park Joon-young said.

Up to 12.2 inches of rain had fallen in Seoul and Kyonggi, a populous province surrounding the capital. Rivers which had risen above their banks and spilled onto roads receded, leaving overturned cars in their wake. Some 3,700 acres of farmland, mostly rice paddies, were flooded.

South Korea's all-news cable channel, YTN, said 36 people were killed. Disaster officials, who put the number at 33, said they were gathering details about the dead or missing.

Three of Seoul's seven main subway lines temporarily halted service to some stations because of flooding. One of the lines resumed full service early Sunday, and the other two were expected to be running trains to all stations by early Monday, officials said.

A duck stands on the engine hood of the damaged taxi, awaiting to be pulled out of the flooded Chungrang river in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday.

Associated Press Photo

In Seoul, 20 people were killed, including 11 who died after being electrocuted by streetlights submerged in floodwaters, officials said. Three people died in Incheon, west of Seoul.

Among 10 people killed in Kyonggi were Ahn Tae-suk, 51, his wife Lee Jung-hee, 53, and 14-year-old son Hyun-jin, who were found dead in their basement house, buried by a mudslide, officials said.

Meanwhile, forecasters Sunday were urging people in southern South Korea to brace for downpours of as much as 4.8 inches in the evening.

"We may see more damage and human losses from the southern region, which was relatively unscathed today," said Kim Dong-suk, a spokesman at the National Disaster Prevention and Countermeasures Headquarters.

Sunday's fatal storms came less than a month after South Korea's worst drought in nearly 90 years.

During the March-June period, South Korea received only 3.7 inches of rain, the lowest since it began compiling meteorological records in the early 20th century. The average rainfall for the period is 11.4 inches.